Paradise is a Matter of Opinion
by gray-streaks
Summary: Annabeth knows why Percy fell with her. Now she just has to find the right time to tell him why he's wrong. MoA spoilers
1. Prologue: Percy

**PERCY**

There isn't time to think: one second they're walking towards the _Argo II_ and the next he's being dragged along as Annabeth gets pulled towards the pit. Everything Percy knows about Tartarus and the Doors of Death flashes through his mind in an instant, _team on the inside, doors need to be closed almost simultaneously, no survivors, _and he feels his eyes widen as he realizes exactly what is happening.

He's trying to reach for Riptide when Annabeth slips over the edge, he follows her and, with a wild grab, he manages to catch hold of a tiny outcropping of rock. He lets out an involuntary moan, it feels like his arms are going to rip out of their sockets and he almost wishes that he was holding up the sky instead.

He feels Annabeth slam into the cliff-face and by the time he glances down to see if she's okay she's already staring white-faced and terrified up at him. It's been about three seconds, but he can already feel his fingers slipping.

_No survivors._

He can't let that happen. People don't come back from Tartarus, even Thanatos avoids it (and there's something important there, but he can't figure out what), he can't just leave her there alone. He won't. He'll get her out of there if it's the last thing he does. The cliff shakes and he almost loses his grip. There's shouting. He barely notices. He's always known that he'd die for Annabeth. He's never thought that he'd have to think about it before hand.

"Percy," Annabeth gasps out, pulling from his thought, "let me go. You can't pull me up."

He knows that she's probably right, but he tries anyway.

_No survivors._

"Never," Percy says when he can't move her even a little bit. He gets Nico to promise that he'll lead the others and then, with his heart pounding so hard the he thinks that it's going to leap out of his chest, he looks down at Annabeth.

There's a bruise forming on her cheek, her hairs so tangled with cobwebs it's hard to tell which is actually supposed to be on her head and there's a blood scratch near her hairline, but he doesn't see any of it. With the light above them, Percy gets what he knows will probably be the last clear look at her face. "We're staying together," he says once her eyes lock with his. His heart clenches painfully tight in his chest, he already knows that he'll have to break that promise. "You're not getting away from me. Never again."

For a second, Percy's nervous, Annabeth can always tell when he's lying, she's like his mom that way. He thinks that she's going to call him out on it, but she says, "As long as we're together."

Percy knows that he's letting his flaw control him, that Annabeth's going to be furious once she's had time to think it through, but somehow when he lets go his only thought is: _If I live through this Athena's going to kill me._


	2. 1: Annabeth

**ANNABETH**

They don't stay together. Because Percy weighs more, he ends up below her, dragging her down as they cling to each other's arms so tightly that Annabeth knows they're going to have scars from the scratches. They try to hold on, Annabeth struggles to reach out with her free hand so that she can find his other arm, but within a few minutes, perhaps a little longer, gravity and air pressure take their toll and their hands slip apart.

Percy could be directly below her, or perhaps she's fallen back past him and he's above her again like at the very beginning, or maybe he's already hit the bottom and exploded like a wet bag of cement. Annabeth doesn't know and she probably won't live long enough to find out. The never-ending darkness yields no clues. Screaming doesn't help; she can hear nothing but the air whipping past her as she falls and… falls and… falls. In the end, there's nothing for her to do but try to relax while she waits for the ever increasing pressure to finally crush her to death.

Well, almost nothing. If the old stories are true, and they usually are, it's nearly nine days to the bottom and that gives her a lot of time to think.

She wonders if Percy's doing better than she is right now. He inherited all sorts of things from Poseidon and he's probably never thought about most of them as 'special powers,' if he's ever thought about them at all. Sure there's the hydro-kinesis, the mini-hurricanes and his ability to breathe underwater, but he has to have some sort of temperature and pressure control that keeps him from freezing or being crushed to death at the bottom of the sea. She wonders if he has to be wet for those particular abilities to kick in; she hopes not.

Now that the back of her mind has had time to process what happened, Annabeth knows why Percy fell with her, but it's not something she wants to acknowledge consciously just yet so she tries to focus on what they have to do once they land. She knows that the Doors of Death must be below them somewhere, finding them will be the hard part; pulling them closed as they leave should be easy.

_Too easy_, the back of her mind whispers. _What if they have to be pushed? _

For a brief second, the answer flashes in her mind and it's so bright and painfully likely that Annabeth is sure she can see it happening before her in the darkness. She shoves it back in the corner with Percy and instead runs through a mental list of their meager gear and supplies. She tries to figure out what their chances are of making through this without dying (assuming the survive the rest of the fall and the landing) and the result is so disheartening that she quickly gives up on that and tries to sleep instead.

It's not easy. The pressure on her chest keeps increasing, it keeps getting harder and harder to breathe, and she's still hurtling to her death at what feels like several hundred miles per second, but she thinks that she eventually passes out for a few hours.

Of course, it's hard to be sure. Her dreams are just as terrifying as her reality and when she wakes up almost nothing has changed. She's still alone and terrified and falling. It's still so dark that it's doesn't matter if her eyes are open or closed. She still has no idea where Percy is. But now she's hungry and she really has to pee. Even if she did have food in her pockets, the wind is too strong for her to keep a hold of it so there's nothing she can do about the first. And as for the second… well there's nothing she can do but send a mental apology to Percy somewhere below her and give into the inevitable. It doesn't even take very long for the wind to dry her jeans.

She wonders how long it's been, how far down they are, how much longer they have to go, but it's not like there are glowing mile markers on the wall and, in any case, she thinks that she's moving too fast to read them if there were. She tries to focus on anything but the fear in her throat or the growing dryness in her mouth or the growing suspicion that Percy isn't planning on going home after all, but it's next to impossible. At this point, it's all she has left.

She falls until she forgets that her heart doesn't belong in her throat, until she can't remember a time before she fell. There is nothing but darkness and wind and the questions. What is it like to not be thirsty? Or hungry? Is Percy even real or is he just a figment of her imagination? Is this what going insane feels like? Doors are important, why? When will she die? Has she died already?

Sleep is no better. In truth, it's closer to unconsciousness and it isn't even a little bit restful. Her dreams are just as dark as the reality; it's like even her subconscious has forgotten what sight is like, what it's like to not be falling. Except she can feel a hand wrapped around her wrist, Percy's nails digging into her skin and hers into his as they struggle to hold on. At some point, she realizes she doesn't know which is the reality and which is the dream, but in the end she realizes that it really doesn't matter.

Sometimes she thinks she hears a voice coming from below, or maybe it's in her head, or perhaps it's just her sanity running away again. She never remembers what it says or even what it sounds like, but manages to leave her with the knowledge that, somehow, she will survive the fall because it's not her time to die. She's not sure why, but that terrifies her.

Suddenly, she jerks awake. Something's changed. It takes her a second, but eventually she realizes that the air around her is misty enough that her clothes are damp. Did she just find a subterranean cloud? She blinks and reaches out as much as she dares, feeling nothing but air and mist and wind. She takes a breath and it's cool and damp and… salty?

Instantly, something in the back of her exhausted, pain and darkness addled mind clicks into place. Moving on instinct, Annabeth pulls her arms in, points her toes and takes as deep a breath as she can manage. Her mind manages to catch up with the rest of her body in the same moment and she's stuck somewhere between: "There's no way," and "I hope you can manage another catch, Seaweed Brain," when she hits the water.

Annabeth's legs don't shatter on impact so Percy must have managed to do something with the water tension. She still can't see anything. She reaches out anyway, trying to fight the water currents that swirl around her, but she doesn't have any strength left. The currents around her keep changing, so suddenly and rapidly that even she can feel it. First she's speeding downwards and then up, and then down again and then she loses all sense of direction. She knows that it's Percy fighting for control, trying to get to her before she gets to deep or drowns, and she just hopes that he manages it soon.

Finally, just as she's about to give into her need to breathe a hand grabs Annabeth's arm and before she can reach out another grabs her waist and pulls her in. She clings to him as they leave the wild currents behind. She pounds weakly against his chest, but she knows he's waiting until he knows he can hold the bubble and… _there_.

She gasps for air before the bubble's even as big as her head and chokes a little on the water by her chin. It's hard to tell, but Percy keeps the bubble small, just big enough for their heads and shoulders. It won't last long, but it's enough to get the job done.

"You're alive," Percy breathes hoarsely into her wet hair, and the relief in his voice is enough to make her heart clench, "I thought… I was sure… I mean I don't dehydrate easy, but _you_…" Annabeth can feel him tremble as he clings to her. Carefully, she releases the death grip she has on his shirt and blindly reaches up, tangling her fingers in his hair. It's dry for the moment, but she can _feel_ how exhausted he is and wonder's how long that'll last.

She licks the drops of water from her cracked lips, it's definitely salty, but she's more than a little grateful for the moisture. "I don't understand it either," she whispers so softly that she's not sure Percy can even hear her, but it _hurts_. "And speaking of…" She swallows thickly and tries to keep going, but she can't.

Percy seems to get the point though, "Yea, there has to be a stream or something somewhere… and if not I've got an idea…" His grip on her waist tightens and she feels him kick as they start moving.

Annabeth doesn't have any fancy water powers, but she can still sense the magnitude of the dark water above and around them. She knows the idea of all that water crashing down on her should be just as terrifying as the thought of nothing but miles and miles of dark, empty space, but somehow it's comforting and for the first time in days she feels something close to relaxed. Or maybe that's just Percy.

"You should try to sleep, if you can," Percy murmurs after a few minutes and rubs his hand up her back under the water. "This is going to take a while, we're pretty far down and a long ways out and-"

_He's going to have to take it slow so I don't get nitrogen poisoning and then he's going to be completely useless once we do get out and I'll have to find a place to stop and keep watch while he passes out for a few hours_, Annabeth finishes in her head. Blindly, she slides the hand from his hair and presses the tips of her fingers to his lips.

"I should…" she manages to get out, but it feels like her vocal cords have been replaced by gravel and she can't manage any farther. Annabeth grinds her teeth for a few seconds and wonders how she's supposed to play charades in the dark.

One of his hands finds her cheek. "It's okay." Percy sounds worried and it might be completely dark, but she can still see the way his eyebrows scrunch together.

Silently, she curses him and his dam water healing abilities. He can probably drink the sea water the jerk. Finally, she sighs and reaches around so that she can tap his shoulder blade.

"My… back?" he says slowly and Annabeth can almost _hear_ him frown while he tries to work it out.

She can't manage a hum to let him know he's on the right track but his hands still on her cheek so she nods instead.

"Okay… you should… piggyback?" He sounds uncertain.

She nods again.

"You're usually right so…" He takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out while he thinks about how to do this. "I'm going to let you go so I can turn around, but you'll be okay. Promise."

She was afraid of that, but she manages another nod and a second later she sinks a little when he does just that. Annabeth has just enough time to decide that the water is in fact terrifying and then he's back and helping her wrap her legs around his waist.

It isn't until he lets out a strangled, "You okay?" that Annabeth realizes she's clinging to his neck and trembling. She forces herself to loosen her grip and presses a dry kiss to the side of his throat. "I'll get you out of here," he murmurs softly, "just relax."

Suddenly her mind flashes back to the theory she had on the way down, but she doesn't have the voice or the energy to bring the topic up so she just slumps against Percy's neck and reluctantly closes her eyes.


	3. 2: Percy

A/N: First, I need to apologize the vast majority of this covers events from chapter one. Skipping Percy's landing didn't feel right and then putting in a scene break didn't feel right either, so I ran with it. Hopefully, it's not too tedious, the action and the dialogue are the same, but because a lot of this fic seems to be taking place in Percy and Annabeth's head's this chapter is very different from the first one. Also, this chapter could have gone longer, but I feel like we'd just end up with the same problem and I wanted to try to keep this from happening again so I cut it. Besides, there's a scene coming up that I think will be more amusing from Annabeth's point of view.

Thanks for putting up with me and enjoy!

XxXx

**Percy**

Percy hits the water faster than he can sense it and, for the first time since being chased out of a national monument by a chimera, the water hits back. Normally, surface tension doesn't bother him, whether because he's 'immune' to it or simply because water just behaves differently where he's concerned is anybody's guess, but now he learns that when it does, it _hurts_. Still, his powers must have done something because he knows that after a certain height hitting water is like hitting cement and he thinks he's in too much pain to be dead.

The force of the impact knocks the air out of his lungs and he sucks in a huge underwater breath before he remembers that he's afraid of drowning. At least he knows it's breathable. It's just as dark underwater as it is above it and the currents swirling around Percy are almost as loud as the wind, but somehow it's less terrifying. Even though he knows he's not alone.

He can sense…_things_, evil, deadly things, swimming around out there in the blackness watching him, waiting, but the water itself is just your average everyday seawater. Not all that long ago, Percy would have laughed if somebody had told him it was possible to make water feel evil. Now, he's just grateful for small favors, the very existence of this ocean included; he wouldn't have thought that dead sea-serpents and the like would have one. It's not like they need it, they're dead after all.

When they don't attack right away, Percy gathers the currents around him and shoots back to the surface.

He feels almost human again, a starving, shaking, terrified human maybe, but human nonetheless. For days, his body has been hydrating itself by pulling water from his personal reservoir, the invisible, weightless, lake of seawater that he carries with him everywhere. Now, he can feel that water supply refilling itself and even adjusting its salt levels back to normal. But more than that, his healing abilities kick in almost instantly and the pain from the impact fades so quickly that Percy's not entirely convinced he felt it at all. They do nothing about the hunger clawing in his stomach or the pain that had settled into his chest days ago.

_Annabeth._

He's failed before he's really had a chance to start.

She doesn't have a back-up water supply like he does and he knows that there's no way that she's still alive. It's just not physically possible. Sure, they do the impossible all the time, but there are limits to what even a demigod's body can take and this isn't going to be one of them. With any luck, her soul's in Elysium where it should be, but her body can't be far behind him. He's not going to be able to carry her out the doors, but he can keep what's left of her from taking the full force of the surface tension.

There isn't time to make a plan and Percy doesn't know enough about physics to make a proper one in any case. He acts on instinct and throws up as much water as he can. It's just a mist, somewhere between rain and fog, and it's almost not enough for him to control, but hopefully he'll be able to tell where she's coming in at. And maybe, if he's really lucky for once in his life, it'll slow her down some.

It doesn't take long. Percy's still trying to recover the energy it took to make the mist when he feels something punch a hole in it. It doesn't take much effort to figure out where she'll hit after that, playing with the surface tension from a distance is harder, but he manages it just before the splash. He dives after her.

And then he senses something that changes everything. There are disturbances in the currents swirling around Annabeth's body, impossible ones so small that he knows he would have looked right over them without his ADHD. Percy can feel every current surrounding her, he knows what's being caused by the force of her descent, what's the result of one current crossing another, even what's happening because one current is pushing her leg one way and causing it to cross paths with another, but there are some fluctuations in the water streams that he can't explain, because they're caused by something else. But there's nothing in that swirling chaotic vortex but Annabeth, which only means one thing.

She's fighting and that's something that dead people just can't do.

As much as part of him would like to pause and revel in this newfound knowledge, Percy doesn't have time to hesitate. The water around Annabeth is swirling, chaotic disaster and, whether it's because she doesn't have any water powers of her own or simply because Percy's so far away, he keeps losing control of them as he struggles to slow her descent. Even once he's up close, he has a hard time catching ahold them and now he's sure that he's just exhausted.

He knows he's running out of time, so he keeps things simple and, with a prayer that he knows his dad won't hear, he reaches through the currents with a wild grab. The tips of his fingers brush against the fabric of her shirt and then, as he's pulling back to try again, one of the bumps his arm up and a little to the left. It's almost by accident, but Percy closes his fingers around Annabeth's arm. Getting his arms around her waist is easy.

Not wants to waste energy by trying to calm the currents down, Percy grabs control of a few that are moving in the general direction of the distant shore and uses them to propel them away from the rest. It only takes about three seconds to get to calmer waters, but he's not surprised when Annabeth starts slapping his chest. How long has she been without air? Thirty seconds? A minute? Longer? Probably not as long as it feels like for either of them, he's sure.

They're down far enough that pulling oxygen from the water isn't easy, but he finds enough to form a small bubble. Annabeth's gasp for air is probably the best sound he's ever heard and he's been present when the Muses were having a concert.

For a long moment, all Percy can do is hold Annabeth while she clutches the front of his shirt and shivers against his chest, or maybe he's the one shaking. It doesn't matter. He presses his face to her tangled hair and just breathes. She smells like the sea and wind and fear, not really like herself at all, but he doesn't care. She's so close that he can feel her heartbeat racing even faster than his.

The part of Percy that's still keeping a look out feels uneasy. He can still sense the monsters surrounding them out there in the dark. From what Nico had said he'd been ambushed by monsters right away and though Percy doubts that his cousin had ended up in the ocean, he can't help but wonder: Why are they waiting now? Surely a son of Poseidon is right up at the top of their 'favorite people to torture' list, but if they're not attacking then they're not a threat so he ignores them for the time being.

"You're alive," he murmurs, stating the obvious simply because he needs tell somebody and it's not like he has many options at the moment. A heartbeat later, he feels like he should try to explain. "I thought… I was sure… I mean I don't dehydrate easy, but _you_…" he trails off, suddenly aware of just how thirsty she must be. Learning how she's survived this long without water can wait; first they need to figure out how to fix it.

"I don't understand it either," Annabeth says sliding her fingers up his face and into his hair; her voice is so faint and hoarse that Percy has to focus all of his attention on it to understand. "And speaking of…" she trails off all together.

"Yea," Percy murmurs, thinking quickly and wrapping his arms even more tightly around her waist, "there has to be a stream or something somewhere…" There's a whole ocean, freshwater can't be _that_ far of a stretch… whether its drinkable is a whole other matter entirely. "And if not, I've got an idea."

_I hope_, he adds silently as he harnesses a couple of currents and pushes them up and towards the shore. If there's one thing he learned about his powers it's that if he does something by accident he can usually do it on purpose. Sure, what he has in mind isn't exactly the same, but he thinks it is close enough. Percy's just worried that by the time he gets them to a place where he can try it out that he'll be too exhausted for it. On the other hand, exhaustion might be a bonus. He never knows how these things are going to pan out until he tries.

Knowing that he's going to have to rise through the water in stages to help Annabeth adjust to the changes in the water pressure, he stops after they've gone only a few hundred feet towards the coast and a couple dozen feet towards the surface. Unbidden, his subconscious tells him how long this is going to take. He wishes it hadn't.

Annabeth's all but curled against him. One of her hands is still curled in his hair and she idly scratches his scalp now and then. Her other arm's wrapped loosely around his waist and one finger is stuck through the belt loop on his hip while her thumb brushes along the skin just under his tee-shirt. If they were curled up on the couch in his mom's living room while she and Paul were out for the day it'd be awesome, they've never had much time to cuddle, but as it is it just makes Percy realize that this is the probably the closest they'll ever get to it again.

"You should try to sleep, if you can," he was softly rubbing her back and hoping that it will distract her from the sadness in his voice, "this is going to take a while, we're pretty far down and a long ways out and-" he stops when Annabeth presses her fingers to his mouth. Unable to stop himself, he kisses them.

"I should…" she starts faintly, but her voice sounds even worse than before and she stops, grinding her teeth in frustration.

Percy moves his hand from her back and, trying to ignore how skinny she's gotten since that night in the stables, slides it up her side until he finds her face. "It's okay."

The fingers on his hip drum out a beat while she thinks; Percy wonders if she knows she's doing it. Somehow, he doesn't think so. After a moment, she sighs quietly and, removing the hand from his mouth, taps the back of his shoulder.

…_what? _

_Think, Seaweed Brain,_ his inner Annabeth voice says, _you've played charades before!_

_Yeah, but never in the dark! _He tells her. _And I've never won!_

He chews on his lip a little and frowns while he thinks. "My… back?" he says hesitantly.

She nods against his hand.

"Okay… you should... piggyback?" he says slowly. That sounds right, right?

Percy can't remember the last time he was part of a piggyback. He's almost positive that he's never given one so it must have been when he was small enough to be the one riding. He's never even understood the term. People don't ride pigs. Well, normal people anyway.

Annabeth nods again and Percy shrugs, "You're usually right so…" he thinks for a few minutes and then deciding that there's no other way to do this reassures her before ducking out of the bubble.

It takes him less than a second to spin around, push his head back into the bubble and quietly refill their oxygen supply, but somehow it's enough time for him to notice that their audience has not only followed them, but moved closer. The monsters are still keeping their distance, but now that distance seems to be about fifty feet less than it was before. How long until they decide that whatever's holding them back isn't good enough?

He reaches back and finds her legs. Annabeth's arms go around his neck in an instant and squeeze so tightly that for a second he's actually afraid his head's going to pop off. Realizing that she's shaking, Percy rubs his thumbs against her thighs while he pulls her legs around his waist. He's trying to be comforting, but he knows that she's probably too numb from the cold to feel it.

"You okay?" he gasps out. She relaxes her grip and presses her lips against his neck. "I'll get you out of here, just relax" he whispers, meaning more than just the ocean and wondering if she's figured it out yet. Most days it feels like she knows him better than he knows himself so probably. Does it make him a bad boyfriend if he's relieved that Annabeth's lost her voice? Or does it just mean that he really doesn't want to get yelled at?

Annabeth gives a tiny sigh, and slumps over Percy's shoulder. She shifts a little bit, probably trying to find a spot where she can be both comfortable and not in danger of falling off, and within a few seconds, he feels the warm breaths on his neck slow as she falls asleep. Her heart beats out a steady, comforting rhythm against his shoulder blade, but once again, Percy's alone in the dark.

Well almost.

This time when Percy uses the currents to propel them through the water, he pays attention. The watchers start following him after only a few seconds and, once Percy decides that it's time to stop so that Annabeth can adjust, they stop just as quickly. While he's waiting, he tries to count just how many are out there, but he loses track almost instantly.

The monsters seem to be incapable of sitting (or floating?) still. They're constantly moving around, vying for the best spots and even, from what Percy can tell, pulling each other to pieces for seemingly no reason at all. Or sometimes, one would move in closer than the rest only to be pulled back by the others and the next one pulled apart. For every monster that ends up struggling against the currents to pull itself back together, two more take its place like some sort of twisted suicidal hydra, maybe they had been torn apart earlier and are just now catching up, or maybe they're joining the small army for the first time. It really doesn't matter.

He shrugs a little, shifting Annabeth a tiny bit, and starts moving again, but when he notices something strange a few seconds later, he stops again. It's abrupt, but the monsters take it in stride. Or get devoured. For a moment or two, all Percy can do is 'scan' the water, trying to make sense of what exactly it is he's sensing.

Because they weren't attacking, the monsters hadn't exactly been at the top of Percy's priority list, but he's certain that they'd had him and Annabeth surrounded. Not anymore. Now, the middle half of the side closest to the shore is clear, an obvious path and Percy can feel a line of monsters on either side of that path leading to the very edge of his senses. He can't tell because the coast is so far away that it's really nothing more than a "Water ends here: approx. 47 miles" warning flashing at the back of his mind, but he thinks that they probably go all the way to the shore.

Percy hesitates, wondering if he should wake Annabeth. They're clearly being herded and given that Gaea is probably waiting for them there, going that way can't be a good thing. On the other hand, where else can he go? If there's another shore, it's so far away he can't sense it at all. He could try to change course, but either a) he'll run into a sea serpent in five-hundred feet or b) Gaea will know where they are the instant they reach land anyway. In the end, he decides that letting Annabeth sleep is more important than bothering her with something they can do absolutely nothing to change and, vowing to fill her in before they actually hit the shore, starts following the path.


End file.
